Let It Be

So, yesterday we made the heartbreaking decision to call the wedding off, for now. It's completely smashed my heart into a thousand pieces and I pretty much cry every single time I think about it. We weren't trying to do anything extravagant, 50 people, dinner, some drinks. We were planning for no cars, a very, very reasonably priced photographer, DIY flowers. But the cost was still spiralling out of control, even with all the budgeting in the world.

While I was walking around Ikea with my dad and Orlando I had that feeling you develop in the depths of your chest when you break up with the love of your life. It's such an overwhelming, engulfing feeling. That's what cancelling the wedding has felt like. It's as if I've broken up with the love of my life, even though he's right here.

Thank you so much everyone for your beautiful words and ideas. I'm filing them away for a later stage. 

♥

On a happier note, we are having homemade sliders tonight. I'm telling you, Breadtop mini buns make the BEST slider buns ever, ever, ever. 

Like that final guest at a party who just won't leave

Well, that didn't last long.. about 9 hours.. HA! DID YOU MISS ME?! Seriously though, everyone has been so gorgeous today re: wedding stress. It had me thinking maybe the bloggy isn't so bad if I can work out wedding stuff/mum stuff/life stuff on it?! Not everything has to have Orlando's face plastered all over it, sorry O! 

So, some people have come up with fantastic suggestions on FB and Twitter about what we can do. The biggest problem is we have put a deposit down at the venue. The wedding is meant to be a Friday (on a Sat the minimum spend is 10K which is just not ever, ever happening) so it's much cheaper. But if we cancel the venue we stand to lose a few K. Frustrating+++... maybe we can do other things cheaper, like are cars necessary? Talk to me about flowers! Tell me your wedding budgeting secrets!!!

P.S Honestly, thank you all so much for your words today they have really lifted my spirits. I basically wanted to stop blogging because I honestly felt like everything was falling apart with the wedding stress. xox

Colour My World

Years ago I tried to do the beige/cream/conservative/"grown up" thing. I really put in the hard yards to make our house as neat and clean and beige as possible. I've got no idea what was going on then, why oh why?! Anyway all I want to live in is colour - surrounded by colour. It makes me so happy. I've had my eye on our dinner plates for a LONG time thinking they were just so white and so boring and so uninspired. I wanted colour dammit and I wanted non matching. Then I found these Anthropologie plates and well, the rest is history. A miss matched jumble of creatures and colours, dinner and dessert (what will be used as side) plates. Hamish had to come to the party with his Chef's Hat on and ruin my glow with "they will be no good for when we want to plate something up that's artistic". ARGH! Yeah, yeah chef man.

Of course, now we need coloured glasses too (from my favourite haunt IKEA) hahahaahahahaa ahhhhhhh poor Hamish...

So that's the extent of my life at the moment colourful dinner plates and glasses, exciting hey!

^_^ ^_^ ^_^

p.s sorry about the gif obsession lately... :/

Day Routine Stylessssssss

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I'm NO BABY EXPERT so take what I say as you will.

Following on from my night routine post I've had a few people ask about our day routine/how I get Orlando to nap. I've been thinking about it lots, trying to remember. 

We tried to establish routines, "the way things work" from day one. From the moment Orlando was born we had him self settling, we would put him down and he would go to sleep straight away (like a newborn does). As he became more aware of the world around him he would sometimes have a little grizzle and we would leave him. If he cried I'd be in there in a heartbeat but a little grizzle or being frustrated - I would leave him. We have a fantastic monitor so we would watch and listen to him on it and take the wait-and-see approach if it was appropriate. I want to reiterate though we wouldn't let him cry, there is a huge difference between an "I'm tired" whimper and a "help me please" cry.

But people have asked me how I've been able to have him nap so well during the day. At the moment he has 3 naps: 2 hours post breakfast, after lunch then afternoon for around 1-1.5 hrs, 1 hour, 30-45 mins respectively.

He always sleeps in his cot. Blinds closed, white noise on. I do not have any mobiles over the cot, my theory is the cot is a place for sleep not play. 

God, I sound like a bitch ahhhhahahahaa

So yeah, this is the routine. It is a routine we established as soon as we got him home (albeit he was in the Moses Basket then). 

Now here's the clincher: I basically didn't "leave the house" for the first 3 months to establish the routine and cues that we have now. If we did leave it was brief and timed around feeds, a quick walk, quick 20 min shop then home. There were friends that didn't understand and got quite upset with me for cancelling lunches etc but I had to put Orlando first. I had to establish a routine and a pattern. For me it was like getting all the ingredients out for the cake before you start making it. I felt like it was so important to do the groundwork. It was tough, I actually lost a friend because of it. But I look back and I'm so glad now that I did it because he day naps like a dream 9 times out of 10.

There are always going to be odd shitty days, but in the greater scheme of things Orlando's day goes pretty smoothly.

Now that he is a few days from 6 months it's easier to get out. In fact for the past, I'd say month and a half or so, I've felt confident to mess with his day routine. I have been getting out when I need to/want to (within reason if he needs to sleep or feed etc then that comes first). It's taken me that long to be able to do that though. 4 months of hard work and basically being chained to the clock/routine.

That's the tough cookie truth of what I did. It really, really worked for us. But it might not work for the next person so like I prefaced with: I'm NO baby expert so take what I say as you will.

Phew, long verbose post! Time for an alcoholic drink, ohhhh yeaaaaahhhhhh. 

xox

zzzZZZzzz Night Time Routine Styles!

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So a few people on Twitter/mum's group/FB etc have asked how we went with Save Our Sleep.
We didn't.
I got the book and decided it was far too strict and that I was trying to fix something that essentially wasn't broken. Orlando was sleeping fine he just needed a feed at 3am. He was hungry, I didn't want to have him bawling his little eyes out because some book told me to. Anyway, things really started to fall into place when we started a night time routine. It's honestly one of the best things we did, we started doing it at about 3 months I think?! It's embedded in him now, he's out like a light at 1845 - 1900 and then Hamish and I have our time for WINE and TV and CHEESE and DINNER woooooo ha!

So here's our night time routine, I highly rec you do something like this early, early in the piece (if you want to of course!). I've found Orlando thrives on routine, your baby might not. Just adapt it to times that suit you/your baby! Of course solids only started at 4 months for us :)

1720 - Solids
1800 - Bath
1820 - Milk - bottle or breast, depends on if I'm exhausted/there is expressed milk in the fridge etc, etc...
1845 - 1900 - out like a LIGHT

2300 - Dream feed (yes we still do it, I know we should drop it especially according to Save Our Sleep but with the dream feed he is having 5 feeds a day + 3 solids meals).

0700 - 0730 Up!

Sometimes he wakes up at 6am and just chortles away to himself in his cot. Has little snoozes and then chats and a snooze then a squeak. I am strict about not getting him up until at least 7am. He isn't fussed and isn't crying. I don't want him getting into a routine where it's ok to wake up at 5am. 5am isn't kind to anyone.

So that's my 2c about a night routine, like I said he's to the clock with it. We've been doing this for 3 months now and love it, he loves it, we know when to time our dinner etc. PLUS we've managed to SAVE OUR SLEEP :) :) :)

Have you got a night time routine?
How does yours go?
Is a night time routine not working for you?